Once he’d regained his feet, brushed off his robes, and gathered the tattered shreds of his dignity around him like a robe of shame, Sen looked over at the divine spirit beast. The massive turtle gazed at him with a monk-like calm. It seemed that Elder Bo was going to wait for Sen to restart the conversation. Sen gave serious thought to simply trying to walk away again but suspected that he wouldn’t be allowed to leave until the turtle got his say. Doing his best to pretend that he hadn’t just been slapped down like an overactive kitten, Sen looked out over the water.

“If you aren’t going to let me leave or kill me, can you please just say what you want to say?”

“You’re still angry.”

“Can you blame me? Even if I wanted to take vengeance on you, I think you just demonstrated rather decisively how far out of reach that goal is for me. Not a lot to celebrate right now.”

“Was that your plan? To take vengeance?”

“No, but it did make for a pleasant fantasy.”

“Ah,” said Elder Bo. “I see. I’ve stolen that fantasy.”

Sen shrugged as he tried to feign indifference. “I knew it wasn’t realistic.”

“Are you always this disrespectful toward those with more power than you?”

Sen didn’t need to think about it. “Yes. Pretty much without fail.”

“That strikes me as a poorly considered survival strategy. Even the threat of Ming, Jaw-Long, and Caihong won’t stop everyone.”

“I do my best not to lean on their reputations,” said Sen with a hollow smile. “It turns out that I’ve got a reputation of my own to lean on these days. It’s mostly smoke and mirrors, but people still believe it. Or they worry enough that it might be true that they don’t want to cross me.”

“Freeing you from concerns about retribution. A fine strategy until it fails.”

“I’m not blind to the possibility of retribution or the strategy failing. Clearly, there are things in this world that can kill me out of hand. I do worry sometimes that some petty bastard will try to get back at me by hurting people I care about. I don’t worry about someone trying to kill me.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the worst they can do is kill me. I’ve faced death before, lots of times, as both a mortal and a cultivator. I’m not in a hurry to die, but it’s not a prospect that frightens me.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to simply be respectful?”

“Easier? Sure. Viable? Not at all.”

“I assume you’re respectful to Feng Ming and the others.”

Sen gave the turtle a sidelong glance and said, “I’m respectful to them because they earned it. Day after day, year after year, they earned that respect. They took me in, taught me, and made me a part of their family when there was nothing in it for them. Respect you have to demand from others isn’t respect.”

“Others have worked for their power. That has value. Some would say it demands respect by virtue of its existence.”

“People think lots of stupid things. I respect what power can do, but that’s irrelevant to who someone is. Give an entitled, scheming ass the power of a nascent soul cultivator, and they’re still an entitled, scheming ass. Pretending to respect them does nothing but make me less. If people want respect, they should act in ways that earn it. Being born into the right family or belonging to a sect or simply possessing power isn’t enough.”

The spirit beast was quiet for a time. “It must be a fine thing to know the hearts of others at a glance.”

“That’s a nice trap you set up there, but I didn’t claim to know the hearts of others. I can’t know the hearts of others. All I can know is what they do. If someone walks up to me, tells me they belong to a mighty sect, and then gets violently offended when I’m not instantly impressed, that’s someone who doesn’t deserve respect. If someone offers me advice under the pretense of wisdom and that advice nearly kills me, respect is off the table.”

Elder Bo snorted in amusement. “A fair point, I suppose.”

“Is this what you wanted to talk about?” asked Sen.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“In part. Your teachers did you a disservice. Refusing to give even the illusion of respect to those who dwarf you in power is not noble, brave, or wise. It is foolhardy.”

“I thought that for a time. That one should bend before the storm.”

“No longer, it seems.”

“No longer. I’ve suffered one heart demon already and nearly caused my own death in a bid to be rid of it. Feigning respect for those I despise would simply give me another, and I can’t count on a second fortunate encounter to cleanse me of its influence. While my power may be nothing next to yours, it’s more than enough to do a great deal of evil. Another heart demon would send me straight down that path. Better by far, I think, to risk my destruction.”

“Stubborn,” muttered Elder Bo.

Sen shrugged. “I’d be dead long since if I wasn’t stubborn. It’s not always a bad thing. Besides, isn’t acting against one’s principles a sure way to end up with qi deviation? Damage your foundation. All that fun stuff.”

“It is, but most people consider practicality or even just plain pragmatism a principle worth employing at least some of the time.”

The mention of practicality made Sen smile as it reminded him of Grandmother Lu. “So I’m told. Practicality is fine. It’s a great way to make sure you have enough supplies when you travel. It’s useful for business arrangements. I have doubts about using it as a philosophy for guiding your life. But I’m a wandering cultivator. There’s nothing practical about that. If I were actually practical, I’d have joined a sect. It’s safer if nothing else.”

“What will you do if you manage to reach ascension? Will you treat heavenly beings the same way? If you find cultivators impatient about your lack of respect, divinities are even less tolerant.”

“Well, who knows what they’ll do when faced with a god?” asked Sen as he gave the spirit beast a steady look. “But since you bring up ascension, maybe you’d like to weigh in on a little theory of mine.”

The normally relaxed presence of Elder Bo immediately shifted into one of discomfort. He watched Sen for long enough that Sen grew nervous. The spirit beast finally spoke.

“What theory?”

“The theory that ascension doesn’t take you to the heavens, just some other place that’s pretty much exactly like this one. The theory that I’m not supposed to be on this plane at all. The theory that someone is interfering with my life to serve some goal of their own.”

“I think I prefer not to weigh in on any of that.”

“Seriously? Nothing? How about this? If I’m right, don’t say anything. Just stand there looking like a giant turtle who isn’t happy with me.”

“Very amusing,” said Elder Bo.

“Fine. Keep the secret. If you won’t tell me about that, will you at least tell me about this Six-Fold Body Transformation?”

The turtle thought about it for a lot longer than seemed reasonable to Sen, but the spirit beast finally nodded in agreement.

“Most cultivators don’t flood their bodies with divine qi the way you did until they’re nascent soul cultivators. There are reasons for doing it and reasons for the timing, but most of those reasons don’t apply to you. At least, not at present. There are also good reasons not to do it before the nascent soul stage. It can interfere with core formation stage body cultivation techniques. With a little bit of luck, that won’t be a problem for you. The main reason not to do it during the core formation stage is that it creates a stronger connection between your body and soul.”

“That sounds like a good thing, not a bad thing.”

Elder Bo sighed. “It’s not a bad thing if you’re connecting it to a powerful nascent soul. It is a bad thing if you’re connecting it to a mortal soul. That connection lets your soul lend power to cultivation techniques and other acts of will. Again, not a bad thing on its own, assuming the soul is powerful enough. Mortal souls are seldom powerful enough, which creates issues. I expect you’ve been feeling tired and even out of place recently.”

“I have,” said a wary Sen.

“You did something recently to strain your soul. Maybe even crack it.”

Sen flashed back to those dreadful moments when he was watching the wave approach the ship. His desperation to make his technique get there in time was vivid in his memory. He remembered pushing with everything he had. That thought led him to other moments of desperation when he’d done things he didn’t really think he could pull off. Had he been borrowing against and possibly even damaging his soul in those moments? He was usually in such dire condition afterward that it often meant staying in bed for days and not doing anything strenuous for even longer. Had it been more than just physical damage? Was he waiting around during those times for his soul to heal? He wanted to dismiss it but feared it was all too plausible. Sen gave Elder Bo an assessing look.

“This is what you wanted to talk about,” said Sen.

“It is,” admitted Elder Bo.

“What should I do about all of this?”

“Stop straining your soul,” said Elder Bo with exasperation. “I thought that part was obvious. You won’t have to worry about enemies killing you if you damage your soul too much. You’ll do the job for them.”

“Okay, but how do I know when I’m doing that?”

Elder Bo paused in thought for a moment. “That’s actually a good question.”

The spirit beast spent most of an hour trying to help Sen understand how to identify when he was straining his soul. Yet, much to Sen’s disappointment, it mostly seemed to boil down to a matter of just sensing when it was happening. There were no explicit signs when it was happening and, until Sen became a nascent soul cultivator, no way to see the damage. Beyond that, all he could do was watch out for the signs that it had happened.

“Anything else I should look out for?” asked Sen.

“Too many things to even name them,” said Elder Bo.

“That was not reassuring.”

“If you want reassurance, ask a less fraught question next time,” said the turtle in an amused tone.

“There’s going to be a next time?”

“If you become a nascent soul cultivator, I expect we’ll meet again.”

With that, the divine spirit beast disappeared back into the water of the cove. Sen frowned at the water, feeling deeply unsettled by everything that had happened with the turtle. With a shake of his head, Sen did his best to clear his mind. He’d kept his promise and showed up. Now, it was time to get back to Falling Leaf and Fu Ruolan.